


Ice to Meet You

by CameraLux (TinCanTelephone)



Series: From Tumblr, With <3 [37]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Attempt at Humor, Episode: s03e17 The Ember Island Players, F/M, Fluff, Minor Angst, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-02
Updated: 2020-12-02
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27835417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinCanTelephone/pseuds/CameraLux
Summary: After a night out to the theater, Zuko finally learns where Aang has been for the past 100 years.
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar)
Series: From Tumblr, With <3 [37]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1035882
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60





	Ice to Meet You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hot_leaf_juice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hot_leaf_juice/gifts).



> Soo I wrote this mini-fic like, FOREVER ago and haven't cross-posted it until now for lots of really good reasons and definitely not because I couldn't think of a title for it until tonight. (I would call it a good title but we both know that is the worst pun either of us have heard all day)
> 
> Anyway. For context I tapped it out on tumblr in like one night in response to [this post](https://nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice.tumblr.com/post/618849108803895296/i-love-the-gaang-finds-out-about-zukos-scar-fic) by @nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice, who I gather is a seriously big blog in the atla tumblr-sphere and who I only have the audacity to gift this to because it's like midnight and I'm tired

The play ended pretty late, but no one really felt like sleeping. After a somber walk back to their temporary “home,” by silent, collective decision, no one went to bed. Aang slumped down against Appa and stripped off his shirt, cursing the heat and the need to hide his tattoos. Katara, he noted with an internal groan, took a seat on the opposite side of their loosely-formed circle, as far away from him as possible. 

They sat there in silence for a long while and the mood seemed to sink impossibly lower, until Suki spoke up. “Not only was it bad, it was also just… _inaccurate_.”

“Well, duh,” said Toph.

Suki glared. “No, you said the playwright did his research but he obviously didn’t. I mean, Katara didn’t really waterbend Aang out of an iceberg, did she?”

“Well…” Next to her, Sokka shrugged. “She did, and she didn’t.”

“What?”

Sokka rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, she did waterbend an iceberg apart, but that’s not what freed Aang, that’s just what brought… his part of the iceberg to the surface.” 

Aang didn’t move from his position on Appa, but he did start listening more closely. He’d never heard this part of the story in great detail.

Sokka continued, “Then when we realized there was someone _alive_ inside this like, glowing, spherical iceberg she grabbed my club and hit it until it cracked open. Then all this air rushed out and the whole thing split in two, sending this bright column of light into the sky.”

Zuko smacked his forehead and everyone jumped. “ _That’s_ what I saw from my ship that day.” 

Sokka gave him a weird look. “Anyway, Katara and I were right next to it and were almost blinded, but when we could look up we saw Aang crawling out of it, his tattoos all glow-y and stuff, and then he just collapsed into Katara’s arms.” 

Aang flinched, and hoped Sokka would end the story there. 

But Suki’s eyes widened and Zuko leaned forward, invested now. “Wow,” she said. “And then what?”

Sokka laughed. “Then he basically asked her out.” 

_Monkey-feathers_. 

Katara covered her face, and Zuko and Suki had the decency to look away, but Toph laughed just as loudly as Sokka. “Oh, Twinkletoes, that’s too good!”

An awkward silence followed, and Aang wondered how bad it would look if he just flew away right now, or if he had the presence of mind to earthbend himself right under the courtyard. 

Luckily, Zuko spoke up. “So wait–”

Everyone looked at him. 

“Aang was really just… in an iceberg that entire time?”

Sokka shrugged. “Yeah, pretty much.” 

“He wasn’t running from the Fire Nation, or in hiding at the South Pole?”

“What’re you talking about?” Katara crossed her arms. “You found our village and attacked us like two days later.” 

Zuko shook his head in disbelief. “So for 100 years… while three generations of my family scoured the world, you were just… sitting in an iceberg the entire time?”

“I believe the word you’re looking for is _chilling_ ,” Sokka said, although no one laughed. 

“How do you think he stayed twelve years old?” said Katara. 

Zuko went from looking at the ground to staring at Aang for so long he felt compelled to say something. “I didn’t even know there was a war going on until Katara and Sokka told me. I thought I’d just been in the iceberg for a couple days.” 

“ _A couple of days…_ ” Zuko repeated faintly, holding his head in his hands. 

Aang stared back at him, as did everyone else until Toph gave another shout of laughter. “I don’t care what you do to the firelord, Twinkletoes, none if it could be worse than the fact that his family spent a century looking for you until these idiots–” she gestured at Sokka and Katara, “–just stumbled upon you randomly and broke you out of the _iceberg_ where you’d been _frozen the entire time_.”

Everyone stared at her for a long minute, trying to take in everything she’d said. It was so quiet Aang could hear the waves crashing in the distance down at the beach. 

Then Suki giggled. 

And maybe it was the lateness of the hour, or the heavy mood that had overtaken them after the play, or just the unbelievable amount of stress they’d all been under for days, weeks, the entire Spirits-damned _year_ , but suddenly everyone burst out laughing, including Zuko. Even Aang joined in, laughing so hard he had to clutch his stomach and almost rolled off Appa’s leg. 

As they finally caught their breaths, Sokka wiped tears from his eyes and said, “You’ll never live it down, Jerkbender. Three generations of firelords outwitted by two water tribe peasants.” 

Really, it wasn’t that funny, but they all started laughing again, and for a little while nothing much mattered. Not the war, not the comet, not his relationship (or lack thereof) with Katara. 

_But that’s okay_ , Aang thought. _It feels good to laugh._

**Author's Note:**

> [original tumblr post](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/post/618867125229060096/nothing-more-than-hot-leaf-juice-i-love)
> 
> Short and sweet today. ~~Looking for the serotonin boost to get me through my real WIPs~~
> 
> I'm still shuffling along this mortal coil on tumblr as [cats-and-metersticks](https://cats-and-metersticks.tumblr.com/)


End file.
